Handful of Moon's Dust Fetched for $500,000

A handful of moon's that brought by Neil Armstrong during the Lunar Apollo 11 mission was sold for $500,000 by an anonymous buyer, media agencies reported on Friday.

The dust was exhibited by the world-famed Bonhams auction house, and the bid was finalized on Wednesday for $504,375.

Adam Stackhouse, Bonhams specialist, told CNN that the recently auctioned lunar dust sample is the first item to be legally sold which made it so hard to value.

He explained: "This estimate gives it a sense of importance," adding: "but it's really difficult to say where it will sell."

In the same context, Bonhams spokesperson revealed that the sample was estimated between $800,000 to $1.2 million.

In 1969, several samples of the moon dust were taken from the bag of the lunar mission stuff and were sold in 2015 to an auction, and NASA's attempts for stop auctioning such samples failed.

NASA Spokesperson William Jeffs said in a statement back in 2017: "This artifact was never meant to be owned by an inpidual."

Stackhouse responded to National Geographic that seeing the samples today like "you’re close to that moment," adding: “It’s like a time machine in a way.”